


Holding On To What's Important

by rarebirdalert



Category: Persona 4
Genre: M/M, One-sided Hanamura Yosuke/Konishi Saki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-07
Updated: 2014-10-07
Packaged: 2018-02-20 06:16:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2418089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rarebirdalert/pseuds/rarebirdalert
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You know, I think sometimes life just goes in certain ways.  But sometimes, when someone is really important to you, you do everything you can to make sure it stays important, no matter what happens.  And then if you're lucky, and both of you want it, then maybe it will stay that way, no matter what.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Holding On To What's Important

**Author's Note:**

> Sort-of kind-of something that fits in and around the Magician Social Link Rank 9 events--which wasn't entirely planned when I started it, but that's where it seemed to go. Like an extended multi-day event remix of Social Link Rank 9, I guess! I wanted to write something that acknowledged how important Saki was to Yosuke, and I wanted to write partners being all sappy emotional, and it just so happened that I wrote both these things in the same fic.

"Sometimes I wonder if falling for someone else would be like, I dunno, like an insult to Saki’s memory."

Souji tilted his head toward Yosuke, mildly surprised at the sudden statement. “Why would it?” he asked.

Yosuke was looking out over Inaba from where they stood at the overlook, but he seemed to be preoccupied more with his thoughts than the view. He sighed, his expression growing even more far-off. “I dunno. Like it might mean she wasn’t so important to me, if I moved on too soon, or whatever.”

He knew he was going to have to tread lightly. Yosuke was coming to terms with the death of the girl he’d cared for, but it was obvious that he still hurt. “She was important to you,” he stated quietly. “That doesn’t change just because you meet someone else. When you care about someone like that, they’ll always be important. That’s not something that gets erased just because later on there’s someone else you care about in the same way.”

There was silence after his words, and Souji willed himself to be patient and let his partner think it over. After a few more moments of just the wind in the trees, Yosuke sighed, bracing his arms against the railing and hunching over. “It just feels like it’s not right, somehow. Well, more like people would judge me for it, I guess.”

"Who would judge you?” he asked, tilting his head. “It wouldn’t be any of us. You know we wouldn’t do that."

"Well, yeah,” Yosuke admitted. “I guess none of the team would. But there’s her brother, Naoki. Remember, he did kinda say he hates me. Even if that’s not really true, I mean, maybe he’d be upset if he found out I was seeing someone. Get mad at me for getting over Saki so fast. But I dunno.” He sighed, lowering his head. “I guess none of it makes sense, but it feels weird. Like I’d be betraying her somehow."

Souji was surprised at how frankly Yosuke was managing to talk about this. Previously, he’d say a few things, only to get overcome with emotion, have a small outburst, and then shut down. Perhaps he really was doing better in handling her loss. He swallowed and spoke carefully. “You know, I don’t think Saki wouldn’t want you to remember her by keeping everyone at arms length to prove that she was important to you. Obviously, I didn’t know her as well as you did, but she seemed like someone who wouldn’t want to see the people who care about her suffer for her sake.” Seeing Yosuke’s expression soften, he went on. “Plus, it sounds like a recipe for resenting her instead of remembering her. If you don’t let yourself get close because you don’t want to let anyone closer than her, well…”

Yosuke looked down and sighed. “Yeah. You’ve got a point. You’re right. It wouldn’t be fair to Saki-senpai. Or to me.”

"Or anyone who wants to get close to you.”

“Like there’d actually be anyone who wants that.” So often Yosuke’s self-deprecating remarks were lighthearted, a sort of preemptive effort to admit his shortcomings before anyone else could do so. But this had a sharp edge to it, unbalanced with any of his usual levity, and Souji looked at him with alarm as he gripped the fence railing and stared, unblinking, over the evening vista. His voice was rougher now. “She didn’t like me the way I liked her. I knew it, too, but I kept hoping that maybe she’d change her mind.”

Souji moved closer to his partner, looking into his eyes while Yosuke kept looking away. “Maybe she didn’t like you the way you liked her, but she did think of you as a friend,” he said, trying to sound calm and resolute despite his growing concern for Yosuke’s emotional state. “You know, you do have a lot of friends who care about you very much. And you’ve made some of those friendships in the time since losing Saki. I don’t think that took away from what she meant to you, did it? You still care about her even though she’s gone, and you care about other people you’ve met since then.”

Yosuke bit his lip and ducked his head down, turning away from his partner. He rubbed his eyes with one hand, the other still gripping the railing. “Yeah,” he started, his voice quavering, and Souji looked away from him as he cleared his throat. “Yeah,” he said in a stronger voice, “you’re right. I do have friends. And they haven’t taken away from how I feel about her.”

“You’re not alone,” Souji said, his voice firm. “And just because you lost someone who was really important to you, that doesn’t mean becoming close to someone else will undo that, or make it mean less to you. And no one should judge you for it, either,” he said with heat.

Yosuke looked at him in surprise, his expression softening. “Partner…”

“Sorry,” and Souji shook his head, swallowing against the pit in his stomach. “I guess I got a little worked up about it. Sorry, Yosuke.”

“No, it’s okay. You said some really great stuff.”

He smiled thinly. “As long as it helps. I was sort of getting off track a bit, I think.”

“No, no, it was great. I mean,” and Yosuke made one of those self-mocking grins, “I haven’t really been great about making friends since I moved here. Honestly, I hated it. I had friends back in the city, and you know, they don’t really talk to me much anymore. They’d talk about things going on there, and I didn’t really have anything I could say about that, and I guess we kinda drifted apart. So I guess it kinda scares me, the idea that not having someone around means you might stop caring about them the way you used to.”

He tried to hide the wince his partner’s words triggered in him. His own departure from Inaba was on the horizon, and though they had months to go, it was still an inevitability: he would be leaving this little town where he’d made so many friends. Reminding himself that this whole conversation was about Yosuke and his feelings for Saki, he swallowed down his own confused mess of anxiety and tried to stay focused. “Sometimes that does happen,” he admitted softly. “That’s just the way life is. Sometimes you care about someone, but life takes you in different directions, and they just aren’t as important to you anymore. It doesn’t mean they never were, just that things change.”

“I guess you’re right,” Yosuke said, his shoulders hunching again. “Nothing can stay the same forever.”

Souji nodded, sighing softly. “I’m pretty used to it, honestly. Probably too used to it. My parents move so much that I don’t think I’ve done more than two years in the same school. So I’d make friends, only to have to say goodbye, and go through that time when they’d just stop talking to me and I’d stop talking to them. So then I stopped putting myself out there to others, because I knew I was just going to leave, and that would be it.” He realized that now he was the one staring out over the view of Inaba without really looking at anything but his own memories. He shook his head at himself and sighed again, deciding he might as well continue. “I kind of expected living here would be the same. I was coming to a small town, everyone already knew everyone, and I’d be the outsider who’d be leaving again, so why would anyone care? But,” and he paused, a flicker of realization running through him. “But it didn’t go that way this time.” He looked at Yosuke. “Because of you.”

It was gratifying to see Yosuke’s eyes widen and a flush color his face in his surprise. “What, me?” he stammered, shaking his head. “What do you mean, because of me?”

“Yeah, because of you.” He smiled softly, feeling a new warmth growing in his words. “You introduced yourself to me, this quiet, standoffish newcomer. You made an effort to talk to me and get to know me. Sure, Chie and Yukiko did too, but even after something embarrassing happened to you in front of me,” and he chose not to specifically mention the trashcan incident, “you still decided you wanted to get to know me. And honestly, you made me want to take the chance again.” He also decided it would probably be easier not to mention the Velvet Room, and the instructions he’d gotten on the importance of forming bonds. Because even with that advice, he’d still chosen to accept Yosuke’s offer of friendship because it was earnest and openly given. “And then you called me your partner.”

Yosuke’s flush deepened, and he rubbed the back of his neck as he looked away. “Yeah, well…there was something special about you. I dunno. I just, I met you, and you seemed like someone I should get to know. Like things would be better if I did.” He laughed, weak with embarrassment. “And, you know, aside from this whole murder investigation, things did get better. So I guess I was right, for once.”

“It meant a lot to me, you know,” Souji said softly, feeling a flush of warmth in his own face. “I thought it was pretty great that this warm and funny and open-hearted guy I’d just met thought that I was worth having as a friend. And called me his partner.”

Yosuke laughed again, shaking his head. “Yeah, well. You are my partner.”

It was obvious that he had gotten flustered, and while most of the time Souji would have kept going, he decided to take it easy on him this time. “So yeah. Things change. Sometimes friendships change, because things happen that mean they just can’t stay the same as they were. But that doesn’t change what they were before, just how they are after that. If someone was important to you, that’s going to always be true. They might not stay important to you in the same way, but that time you shared together, that’s not going to change.” He took a deep breath as his eyes started to sting with tears. “So when I have to leave, the fact that you were important to me here, now, during this time, that’s never going to change.”

He heard the rustle of clothing, and before he could do more than blink through his tears, he felt his partner’s arm come up around his shoulders, tugging him close. Yosuke was silent for a moment, as if waiting to make sure that this gesture wasn’t refused, and when Souji realized this, he turned toward him and wrapped both his arms around him. After just a heartbeat of hesitation, Yosuke brought up his other arm, making the awkward half-hug into a full embrace. The wash of reassuring comfort he found in it did nothing to keep the tears out of his eyes, but that didn’t seem to matter as much, not when he was with his partner.

When Yosuke spoke again, his voice had a softness that Souji had rarely heard in him. “You know, I think sometimes life just goes in certain ways.  But sometimes, when someone is really important to you, you do everything you can to make sure it stays important, no matter what happens.  And then if you’re lucky, and both of you want it, then maybe it will stay that way, no matter what.”

“Yosuke,” he murmured, still fighting his tears. It seemed like such a ridiculous reason to cry on his partner’s shoulder, with tears brought on by the thoughts of his departure still so far off. But that wasn’t all of it, and he knew it.

It seemed Yosuke knew it too. “I didn’t have that chance with Saki-senpai,” he said, his voice low. “She was important to me, but we never had a chance to see what that could mean for both of us, once I got it through my head that she didn’t like me the way I wished she did. I can sit here being upset about it, but you’re right, she wouldn’t have wanted that.”

“No, she wouldn’t,” Souji agreed.

“But there is one thing I can do,” he went on, soft but fierce with the determination that was so admirable about him. His arms tightened. “Whatever happens, I’m going to do everything I can to make sure that you stay important to me.”

Fresh tears blurred his vision before he squeezed his eyes closed. He held on tight. His heart pounded full to bursting with the gratitude that someone this amazing had just pledged to do everything in his power to stay in his life. “Yeah,” he said, testing his shuddering voice to see if it could hold the weight of his response. “Yeah, I promise that I’ll do the same. Partner.”

“Partner,” Yosuke agreed.


End file.
